Antenna Day!

This is the Icom IC-2820H with its red-orange panel color selected. This is just the control panel. The rest of the radio is under the driver's seat in my Juke.
This is the Icom IC-2820H with its red-orange panel color selected. This is just the control panel. The rest of the radio is under the driver’s seat in my Juke.

I know, I know. Nerdy, yes. But I love antennas.

The big antennews is twofold…

• Bates Electronics installed the Icom IC-2820H dual band amateur radio in my Nissan Juke, along with two antennas. I had them install two antennas for two reasons; 1) I like antennas, and 2)the IC-2820H has a diversity receive feature that allows it to compare signal strength from each antenna and choose the better signal to maintain best receive quality. It’s probably a bullspit feature, but my car is bristling with antennas, so I’m pleased.

The new antennas on my Nissan Juke are the Comet SBB-1NMO and the Comet B-10NMO. In the middle is the Juke's GPS/Satellite/radio antenna.
The new antennas on my Nissan Juke are the Comet SBB-1NMO and the Comet B-10NMO. In the middle is the Juke’s GPS/Satellite/radio antenna.

• I recently noticed an unused vertical antenna on top of a local building. When I called the owner to ask if I could buy it, he said I could have it, since it had been abandoned by a cell phone company years earlier. A co-worker and I got up there and got it without too much fuss, and now I am wondering what I can do with it. It is a 1900Mhz antenna, but I might be able to adapt it for receiving the 800/900Mhz OKWIN communications network.

My car doesn’t really feel like mine until there’s a real amateur radio in it that will also double as a scanner. Even though it’s a dual band (VHF and UHF), I expect I will mostly use it in the VHF/VHF configuration, allowing me to use one side of it as the scanner and the other side for the local amateur repeater.

The installation worked well, and the radio looks like it belongs there.

The Icom IC-2820H with its panel color set to green. I'll probably change it fairly regularly, so it's sort of a "mood radio."
The Icom IC-2820H with its panel color set to green. I’ll probably change it fairly regularly, so it’s sort of a “mood radio.”

1 Comment

Comments are closed.